Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:39:41 +0100 From: "O. Hartmann" <ohartman@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> To: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au> Cc: "Pedro F. Giffuni" <giffunip@tutopia.com>, freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alternatives to gcc (was Re: gcc 4.3: when will it become standard compiler?) Message-ID: <4969CC6D.6030707@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> In-Reply-To: <20090111044448.GC5661@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> References: <61484.71762.qm@web32708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20090111044448.GC5661@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org>
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Peter Jeremy wrote: > On 2009-Jan-09 19:22:38 -0800, "Pedro F. Giffuni" <giffunip@tutopia.com> wrote: > >> - Remove gcc from the base and make the compilation depend on a packaged C.. somewhat like was made with perl. >> > > ... schnipp ... > IMO, the > FreeBSD base system should come complete with the necessary tools to > build/install itself. > > I agree. And it woukd be preferable having a fast and efficient C and/or C++ compiler. Well, initially my question was triggered by reading a performance duell between FreeBSD 7/8, most recent U(n)buntu and OpenSolaris and someone stated the 3% performance gain of U(n)buntu over FreeBSD was due to the gcc4.3 compiler, which generates more efficient code. 3% mean performance gain could mean (as I made this experience) a better advantage in some special cases and having in mind numerical modelling running on my lab's FreeBSd box (yet, but I think this is about to change and move towards a RH Linux system due to the better support of HPC and, a pitty, our admins build the cluster with RH and not FBSD). I'm not an expert in politics and OS development, but as far as I know, SUN tried to extract the compiler out of the base system and failed by doing this. In my opinion, being independend on the base system and additionally having a very fast C compiler could also losen the tight bindings to licensing restrictions. I never took care about GPLv2 and v3 differences but know, this seems to come to relevance in some way. Well, as I understand the discussion about the binutils (there seems to exist a very similar problemacy), did RH already cut off the leashes by introducing their elftools? Correct me, if I'm wrong. Oliver
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